Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Tour de

To the media:
We know that Lance has won 7 Tours de France. We know that "Lance" rhymes with "France." "Tour de Lance" is really not as clever as you think it is.

Monday, July 25, 2005

Ice cream weather

You know when you are outside on a hot summer day eating a nice big ice cream cone and you can't eat it before it all melts onto your hand but you don't really care and lick it off but then for the rest of the day your hand is ice-cream-sticky? That ice-cream-sticky is how you feel when you go outside. It's hot, delicious, buggy, humid summertime. I sort of forgot what non-sticky summer feels like until yesterday when the weather was hot and sunny and perfect, just like LA, and I got a little nostalgic for California and everything associated: sushi, beach, boba, non-sticky sunshine, flip-flops...because even though people wear flip flops everywhere, and didn't even originate in the US, I feel they only truly belong in California.

To celebrate a weekend of non-stickiness, I went to Habana Village with Lisa and Maddy and salsa-ed until the wee hours. And we ate a fancy dinner at their pad on Saturday: Salmon and wilted spinach and cucumbers...homemade hummus...Indian hors d'oeurve things...and I brought a crab-mango-cucumber appetizer. A little white wine, and some peach crumble and cheesecake (both!) to finish it off. From now on I will only associate with people who cook as well as this.

In unrelated news, I love the title of this article. "Don't you do it! Don't y
ou do it! I'll, why, I'll...I'll have surgery on you! HA!"

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Things That Should Not Be Said

*steps onto soapbox*

1. "After all, this is the 21st century!" and variations thereof, when used as a reason for doing, well, anything. For example, "I can't believe that people are still questioning the theory of evolution! After all, this is the 21st century!" or, "How can you still believe in that (moral code, Bible, Koran, Zoarastrianism, absolute truth, hell, right and wrong...whatever)? This is the 21st century!"

What does being in the 21st century have to do with anything? The fact that we live at a certain time in the history of the Earth has no bearing on whether or not something should or shouldn't be done. It has no influence on morals, character, right and wrong, or truth. You may as well say, "After all, this is Tuesday morning!" or "After all, this is 1066 B.C.!"

This does not include, of course, things that actually have to do with time. "After all, this is the 21st century and we have computers to do what they did by hand in 1066 B.C." is acceptable.

2. "But don't all girls...?" Ok. I have heard this from many people of the male persuasion. It usually ends with something like, "...love to shop?" or, "...hoard stuffed animals?" or, "adore cats?" The people who say this are genuinely surprised that all girls do not, in fact, do all of the above.

I admit to having said, for example, "Oh, yeah, guys are so like that!" or, "They all totally do that!" and making sweeping generalizations...but REALLY. Do you really think that ALL girls in the WHOLE WORLD are the same?

This goes for everyone: "But don't all children like cotton candy?" "But aren't all Indians good at math?"

Continued:

3. General petty male-bashing in the vein of, "God made all men the same but gave them different faces so we could tell them apart." Does this need to be said? Do you really believe that? Then don't say it.

...I just don't get it. Just because males have traits that we females don't get doesn't give us the right to put them all down. And it's not like we don't have traits that they don't get. Are their bad traits so much worse than ours?

And even if you DO believe that women are somehow superior to men, men do make up half the human population and are sort of critical members of society. I don't get them either, but name-calling doesn't help.

Plus, usually the females who are doing the male-bashing would be incested to hear a man bashing females in the same way. Equality, people. Calm down. Start behaving like grown-ups. Feminism and women's liberation should be about more than the right to verbally attack the other sex.

4. And a grammar comment: you learned this in elementary school. Subjects and verbs are supposed to agree. "There's many reasons," IS NOT CORRECT. "There are many reasons," IS CORRECT. This is not that hard. Now you try: "There _____ two cookies in the fridge." Good. Now.

5. "Health food," as in, "Ooh, you're into health food," when at the grocery store buying fruits, vegetables, and whole wheat bread and not chips, soda, and frozen dinners.

Fruits, vegetables, etc, are normal food. Normal. From the earth. Given to us by God. This is what people have been eating for millenia. Processed food is a relatively new addition to the human diet. Not all processed food is "junk" and not all normal food is "healthy" and too much of anything is bad, but my point remains: food that comes from the earth is normal food. It happens to be healthier than most, or possibly all, manufactured food, but that doesn't negate my point: it doesn't deserve a new name. I mainly dislike it because it is often said with awe and/or disdain, as in, "Whoa, dude, you're eating carrots, that's so...healthy..." or "Do you really LIKE that stuff?" It bothers me that normal food is suddenly considered special.

Thank you. I am done for the day.

*steps off soapbox*

Monday, July 18, 2005

Please?

I know how the Department of Defense can save hundreds - if not thousands - of dollars this summer.

TURN OFF THE AIR CONDITIONING. IT'S FREEZING IN HERE.

Thank you.

Tuesday, July 12, 2005

July 4

Fourth of July on the Mall. Note the cleared plates in front of Fatema-For some reason they were giving away a "Free Feast." And it was honest-to-goodness free, except they did give you a Hare Krishna tract as you waited in line for it. We stayed on the Mall from 2ish to post-firework, at which point they immediately shooed us off the grass and we (the thousands of us on the Mall) spilled over into the streets in search of the nearest Metro station. Seema-the cute girl on the left-and I were horrified at the wait at the Union Station Metro and decided to skip it and walk up Mass Ave. to Dupont Circle, in part to burn off the many, many ginger cookies we had eaten. It was a great 4th, except for the part where the helicopter flew overhead and shone a spotlight into everyone's eyes during the firework finale. I assume it was for security reasons, but I'm honestly not sure how that really protected us...from anything...

Monday, July 11, 2005

Blog Blog Blog

To those of you who read my blog (yes, all three of you) I have an announcement: another blog. But about FOOD this time: cheap, good food. It is a newborn, but I have high hopes for it.

Also announcing my brother's new blog. All about Alaska and the people who live therein. Brrrr.

See you online.

A Sumptuous Weekend



Did you know that there are French restaurants in DC open until the wee hours of the morning? I’m not sure there are even French restaurants in France that are open until the wee hours. Lisa, who really is quite the social butterfly, arranged a wee-hour rendez-vous at Bistro Francais in Georgetown, which stays open until 4 am. When we arrived at 2 am, Georgetown was still hopping and the Bistro was not doing badly, either. I’m not sure I can remember most of the conversation that took place over Lisa and Priyanka’s escargots or our lemon tarts and cappuccinos, but I’m sure it was insightful and sophisticated, because it’s hard not to sound sophisticated when you are eating escargot and moules nicoise. It may be hard to look sophisticated if you have never used the escargot implements, however, which involve a tong-like device specifically designed for holding the shell while you use the long, thin, two-pronged fork to extract the unfortunate snail from his abode. There is something so excitingly unorthodox in eating snails and mussels at 3 am. If you ever get a chance to do this, take it.

Earlier in the evening we-a gaggle of us, some of whom had never met and were friends of friends-went to a potluck gathering in honor of a friend’s friend’s friend. By the end of the evening, of course, we were all friends and had almost forgotten the twisted way we had come about knowing each other (friend’s friend’s roommate’s cousin, for instance.) Seema brought a yummy Pakistani dish, which, if she allows, will appear shortly on my food blog. Lisa made a pasta salad that had neither too much oil nor too much garnish. Homemade spanokopita … Russian pancakes with a frothy cinnamon filling … it was really all very exciting. And the company was terribly interesting, too. I love living in DC because it’s such a hub of interesting, motivated people. The amount you can learn from the people you meet at a simple potluck dinner! See picture-aren't we glamourous?

And then, after this decadent Saturday, I spent Sunday at the pool and the movie theater with Martin, whose 35-hour (yes, 35-hour!) shift at the hospital had earned him a day off. Those who see me often had to listen to me all last week talk about how much I wanted to see him and how despondent I was and how he always has to work so much…so you know how happy I was to see him after a week and a half!

A weekend like this makes the workweek worthwhile.